RALEIGH -- They've already signed a lease for new Wake County schools headquarters in Cary, but some members of the Wake Board of Commissioners still want to know more about where the money's coming from to pay for it.
The lease could be financed with $9 million from the 2006 school bond issue for new elementary schools in Wake Forest and Garner, which have since been delayed. There's also more than $4 million in maintenance costs that the county won't have to pay on the current headquarters on Wake Forest Road and other school buildings.
But those pockets of money are just fallbacks for the real plan - selling 3600 Wake Forest Road.
"We are in negotiations with a couple of interested parties, although nothing has been locked in yet," Don Haydon, chief facilities and operating officer of the school system, told the commissioners at a meeting Monday.
Board member Stan Norwalk, a Democrat, questioned whether it would make more sense to buy land now with the $9 million, rather than wait until the current administration facilities sell.
"When we go back to make those land purchases, we wouldn't be able to buy as much land as we could today," Norwalk said. "The price of land is probably near a low of recent decades. Are we going to see that we need $11 million or $12 million to replace it?"
"If we sell cheap, we can buy cheap," Haydon said.
School board members have said they can save more than $20 million during the next two decades by selling the current administration building and leasing office space at Crossroads Corporate Park, off Dillard Drive in Cary.
The move would result in Wake consolidating several administrative locations. The item will return to the board's agenda Sept. 7 for possible final approval.
In other business, board members voted to apply for more than $12 million in federal funding for the planned Neuse River Greenway Project. The county committed to pitch in $2.48 million if the grant is approved.
